Atlantic City, NJ was largely founded by the vision of Dr. Jonathan Pitney and the family money and influence of 30-year-old Samuel Richards. The two men worked together to get a railroad to run from Camden, NJ to Absecon Island, NJ (later named Atlantic City). The two men recruited investors and financiers for the railroad and used their money to speculate on land all over the island, buying large portions of it from the children of the island’s largest landholders who had no interest in farming the harsh lands of their fathers.

Pitney and Richards bought so much land in Atlantic City and around the path of the railroad that the state of NJ passed a law forbidding their railroad from purchasing any more land. To work around that, the pair formed a new company that existed to buy land for the railroad. Problem solved.

Prior to the 1854 opening of the railroad line, Pitney had been pumping out letters to the editor in all the Philadelphia papers, raving about the restorative and curative powers of the sea and this Absecon Island in particular. In the 19th century, Medicine was not the path to respect and riches that it is today. Hell in the 20th century, plenty of doctors were capricious enough to lend their 4 out of 5 support to whichever tobacco company was paying the most. Pitney wasn’t much different.

The trip to Atlantic City took two and a half hours by train, there were nine passenger cars with no windows. The coal-fired locomotive sullied many a passenger with its soot and thick clouds of black smoke. The cost of a round trip ticket was $3, with one-way being $2. Several of the officers on the Railroad’s board including Samuel Richards felt that they could attract more passengers by lowering the cost and making it more affordable for the blue-collar workers of Philadelphia to take day-trips to Atlantic City.

The early adopters of Atlantic City weren’t crazy about the idea of sharing their ‘getaway’ with lower-class city workers, nor were most of the railroad’s board. Richards and co. grew so frustrated that they left the railroad and formed another. Richards once again used his family name, wealth and influence to secure a second charter from the state government in Trenton, and began on a smaller gauge railroad.

The slowly growing, not as great as Cape May, community of Atlantic City now had two railroads going to it. The new Philadelphia and Atlantic City Railroad undercut its competition by 50% and brought an influx of Philadelphians who couldn’t afford to stay over in the hotels or rooming houses. These lower-fare riders didn’t care that the benches were hard, the seats were torn, or that the cars were some of the worst on the rails of the day.